Restless & recent hunger strike

[chelizard]

I went on vacation for two weeks and a housesitter stayed at my house to take care of my cat and chameleon. She fed my chameleon, Linguini, every other day using cups of roaches that I portioned in advance. She also dusted them with the necessary powders each feeding (see routine below). He ate totally normally while I was gone.

Since coming home, he has not eaten from his feeding dish for about 6 days. He has eaten two hornworms off my hand in that time, a superworm and a dubia or two. The dubias that I put in the feeder cup are still crawling around. I put five BSFL in there too, but those haven't been eaten either. He normally is waiting by his feeder bowl each morning and gobbles everything up.

He's also been completely restless. He paces around his cage and crawls on the screen, from the basking area to the bottom to right below the basking bulb. He mostly crawls on the side that faces the window. His colors have been pretty dark black with teal spots and some stripes. When I open the cage door to mist the plants or clean up urates he has been puffing up and swaying at me.

The weather has been really lovely here and sunny / warm, so I've left the double doors open to get a nice breeze. I am wondering if he wants to go outside.

I'd love two recommendations!

1. A large outdoor plant I could put him on to bask, and recommendations for how to move him out of his cage to the plant, and back inside.
2. How to make his cage more appealing so he's more content in there.

Open to any and all suggestions! Any idea what might be going on or how to help?



Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - Veiled chameleon, male, guessing ~1-1.5 years old? I caught him wild in SW Florida.
• Handling - He eats hornworms or the occasional superworm out of my hand. Pretty feisty and doesn't want to crawl out on me unless I put a hornworm on my shoulder and extend my arm.
• Feeding- Feed 5–7 feeders per day. Currently feeding dubia roaches and BSFL. I feed him a hornworm every other day, and sometimes a superworm or two as a snack. He ate the entire pothos plant I put in there over the past few months.
  • Dubias are fed bananas, apple, and collard and mustard greens, sometimes carrots.
• Supplements - ReptiCalcium w/o D3 on every feeding. Sticky Tongue Farms Indoor Miner-All 2x/mo. ReptiVite once every other week.
• Watering - Manually misting water for 2 minutes each day, once when I wake up and once around when his lights go off at 7:30pm.
• Fecal Description - White urates, normal poops. Sometimes the poop is a bit slimy. Poops maybe once or twice a week.
• History - I caught him in southern Florida a few months ago and overnight mailed him to my house.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - 24x24x48 Reptibreeze XL screen cage.
• Lighting - Arcadia PRO T5 Fixture 6% Bulb resting an inch or so from the top of the cage.
  • 100W frosted incandescent bulb in an 8.5" ceramic dome with dimmer, turned down to ~60% brightness or so for ideal basking temperature.
  • Daily lighting: 7am – 7:30pm for both bulbs.
• Temperature - measure with a temp/hygrometer at the top and middle of cage. Infrared thermometer used to measure other areas.
  Daytime Temps
  Basking spot: 80-86 degrees F. Center of cage: 76 degrees F. Bottom of cage: 73-75 deg F.
  Evening Temps: ~66-68 deg F.
• Humidity - Daytime: 39-45%. Evening: 50-60%. Misting 2x/day in morning and evening. Using temp/hygrometer to measure humidity.
• Plants - Tons of live plants, including: pothos, prayer plant (maranta), two schefflera, snake plant, one philodendron xanadu. I built a frame inside the cage so there is nothing touching the floor. There's a tray on the bottom that I can pull out to rinse and drain. There's also manzanita branches in there that I collected, sanded, washed, sanitized and dried.
• Placement - Cage is next to my desk and in the side of a large living room, ~10 feet from large glass french doors and a heating vent. Bottom of cage is about 2 feet off the floor, top of cage is about 6 feet high. It sits on top of a tall wooden TV stand and is surrounded by tall plants.
• Location - Northern California.

Photos show him crawling around, what the inside of his enclosure looks like, and where his cage is inside my house.

 

[GrannyK]

Welcome to the forum!!! You’re in good hands here. Have you had a fecal exam done? Wild caught are usually loaded with parasites. I will not review the husbandry, I’ll leave that to the more experienced but just a thought? He also looks thin which makes me think parasites as well, especially if he has been eating normal until recently.

 

[elizaann2]

Hello and welcome!!! First thing I notice is he is a WC, have you had him tested for parasites? Any idea on how old you think he might be? Juvenile or adult?

 

[MissSkittles]

Your husbandry looks fine to my eyes except I do have a couple of questions.
Does your ReptiVite have D3 or no?
Did you ever get a fecal check for parasites done?
Is there something that has changed since you’ve been back? Can he see more of the cat? Can he see his reflection somewhere? How long have you had the cute little glass watering bulbs in your plants? Going so very dark makes me think of two things - either he is really cold or he is seeing a threat, either in a predator or competitor (his reflection). Also, this would inhibit his eating as they are vulnerable when eating/drinking. Somehow I’m thinking it may be the glass bulbs in the plants.
I’m sure he does want to go out and get some fresh air and sunshine, but this wouldn’t be reason for his behavior. For moving him, I’d just be doing it via my hands. Some choose to coax onto branches or an other suitable transport item.